The King's Throne

Any guesses on what this post is about from the title?

Of course! I'm sure you've guessed it - The Master Bathroom!  A lot has happened since you saw the bathroom in my April Master Suite Update post. Walls have changed location, tile has gone up, new windows were installed, etc.  Here's how things looked when it finally started coming together initially...

Here's a look at the "throne" room within the bathroom.

Future vanity space with tile and plumbing going in.

Peeking into the shower.

Tile going up (and new window in) where the future soaking tub will go.

Looking into Throne room on right and shower on left.

Fast Forward a few days/weeks, and the room started to look more like the below photos.  Molding went in, the tile was grouted, and things started to come together a bit more.

Tub location

Shower

Shower Floor

Vanity location

Once the major work was done in the bathroom we could really start to see it take form, and understand how we're live in it everyday once it was all done.  Being at the far end of the house, and having views of the beautiful landscape around us already makes it feel cozy and relaxing. We can't wait until everything's done and we can come home after a long day of work and soak in that bathtub!

Since the photos above, paint has also gone on the walls. Although the color isn't really gray, the name is "Conservative Gray" - take a look and see what you think.

This is another color that looks different in different light - throughout the day and with the lights on/off.

Doorway to throne room and vanity area towards the right.

Peek into the throne room.

So there you have it. More to come very soon on the bathroom - very exciting!!

I'm Feeling Blue, But It's a Good Thing!

Time for a Hall Bathroom update! The Hall Bath is the main level's main bathroom for the main living area.  It's also attached to the second bedroom on the main level, with a pocket door. In this room, we decided to open up the space by adding a clear glass standing shower, as opposed to the opaque shower that was there before.  We also reduced the size of the vanity that was in there previously, again to add to the open space and "less cramped" feel. Here's a photo of the first steps towards a finish product...

Tile going in - shower and on the floor.

Fast forward to the tile install finishing, and we're up to paint! For this room, I wanted to keep it light and bright (again to make it feel larger), so I went with a lighter paint color in addition the white tile on the wall. "Tradewind" is the name of the shade of blue we chose to go with (hence the "Blue" reference in the post title).  here's a look at how things started to come together with some paint on the walls...

Hall Bath with tile finished, grout done, and paint on the wall! (Keep in mind there's still a horrid yellow light bulb in there.)

Now that the paint was up and the tile was finished, it was time to install the toilet, vanity and shower glass walls. Flash forward again to having all those things installed!

Vanity now in place!

Toilet and Glass Shower Walls/Door installed!

You can definitely see the difference in paint color with the light turned off in the bottom two photos as opposed to the one up above that had the yellow overhead light on.

Here's on more look at the bathroom in it's almost finished state!

Again, the paint changes with the lights on.

So that's where things stand for now.  There's still odds and ends to finish in this room, but as you can see it's really starting to come together - Wah Hoo!

A Place to Drop Your Things...

Since Frank and I park in the garage everyday, we almost always come into our home through the breezeway.  When we moved in, there was a step up from the breezeway into the Dining Room.  As we talked through our renovation plans, we decided it would be better if there were no step up immediately to enter the home, and if there were some place we could drop our things as we entered.  There's nothing I hate more than a big pile of mail on the kitchen counter, and shoes all over the place. 

Our solution was to create a mini-mudroom with a "sunken" floor.  We chose to tile the floor with the same tile we used in the entry/foyer, and added cubbies for coats, a bench to store and put on shoes, and even a "stuff" tower for mail, phones, bags, etc.  The mudroom entry lets us enter the side but still take off our coats and shoes right away without walking all the way to the front door, etc.  So here's how it's shaping up...

Standing at the end of the kitchen island, looking towards the mudroom/breezeway.

Mail/Stuff Tower.

Mudroom bench seating and coat cubbies.

We'll be adding hooks in the cubbies as well, but those are still in the works.  The mudroom is turning out just as we hoped, and we know it's an area we'll use heavily every day!

FINALLY we have bar seating!

I searched for months on end for bar stools that were in our price range, would be comfortable and would work with my overall design aspiration for our lower level bar area.  I stalked craiglist for months, but the options there were either too expensive for something used, they didn't have enough (we needed 3-4 stools) or they were just plain ugly!  So, the hunt continued for quite a while. 

While out on a recent shopping run, I came across a bar stool I thought might work.  At first, I thought about purchasing the slate gray color.  After contemplating the purchase and going home, I realized the blue would work much better.  I showed Frank to make sure he was on board with the purchase, and he approved.  So that's what we went with, and here are a few photos for you!

From the bigger open space looking towards the bar area.

Standing in the bar area, looking down the seating row.

 P.S. - don't mind the mess in the background.  Those are the stool boxes and the stairway is tarped and taped because of the construction upstairs.

Houston, we have Flooring!

Things are in full swing at the home front, and our most recent check off the list was the flooring in our downstairs bar area!  You may recall that when we moved in, the bar area looked like this...

I must say, I kinda miss that minty green brick - NOT! Although this isn't the best picture of it, you can see how the floor behind the bar looked per-renovation. Also notice that pre-reno there was carpeting on the side of the bar where the stools would go.  In our opinion that's a big no-no if you ever really want to use that bar.  Between the stools being shaky on carpet, and the possibility of red wine or drinks spilling onto cream carpet, we both agree that whoever thought that up must not have had any friends to invite over for a party!

I recently posted a bar update, and we showed you the demo work that was taking place by the bar...
  

The second picture shows you what the floor looked like behind the bar after we removed the old tile and before the new flooring went down.  So now let's get to the good part of this post - the new flooring!  Here are a few pictures of how it turned out...

View from behind the bar (same as above pre-reno pic).

The tile runs into our storage closet as well.

A view looking out from the back of the bar - of course Tyson wanted to get in on the action too!

View of the outside of the bar area - where stools will go!

Standing in living space looking towards the bar.

The whole thing!

We love how it turned out!! It looks even better than we thought it might.  The wood-look tile was the perfect choice for this space.  We're planning to also use the same tile along our backdoor in this same room.  Honestly, we're so thrilled with this tile that is might just wind up going in another room or two down the road... we'll see.

Although we don't have any pictures to share just yet, we did put in the order for our bar counter top.  Hopefully in the next few weeks I'll be able to snap a few pics and post those for you to check out as well.  There's still a lot to do to this space before we can deem it "finished," but we're happy with the progress so far. 

That's it for now!

Our Pantry Grew Some Walls!

In our last post about the main level kitchen/open floor plan it looked like this:

You can barely see that the pantry bottom frame was laid.  Since then, our pantry has started to grow some walls, haha!  Things are definitely coming to life with this space, and it's exciting to be able to walk around it and get a feel for how it will truly be once it's finished. 

Here are a few pictures of the initial exterior pantry walls going up...

View from standing in side mudroom looking straight on towards pantry.

View from standing in living room, towards the front of the house looking back.

Now, the pantry looks more like this:

We've added the stud walls inside the pantry that will support the backs of out cabinetry, as well as house plugs, water lines, etc. that will be needed for the appliances.  We've also finished up the electrical work that will be in, on, and around the pantry (for the most part).  We'll need to update switches and do finishing touches like that when we get more into the "putting things back together" final stages. Another thing we finished up was ripping up the old hardwood and other flooring and prepping the sub floor for new flooring.

So for now, that's where things stand in the kitchen/pantry!

Bar update...

Not much of an update with the bar really, but a few things have happened. 

1. We ripped up the old tile floor - what a mess that was!
2. We demolished the old counter top - also a big mess!
3. We had the new stainless steel back splash installed around the cook-top - YAY!
4. We ordered the new tile & will be order the new counter very soon... so hopefully we'll be back in working order before we know it!

Here are a few pictures of the changes...

We've since taken down those boards holding up the stainless while it set.  I'll save the full view for the mid-way reveal once the flooring and counter top are in!  So for now, you'll just have to wait. :)

Now that's what you call an "Open Floor Plan!"

This past week was a great one for renovation progress at the house! One big thing that we were able to accomplish was cutting in the mudroom for our side entry.  The mudroom will be sunken below the rest of the main level by a few inches, and will be a tiled space.  We'll have some cubbies and hooks to hang coats, and places for shoes and mail too.  Since the side door is the main way that Frank and I enter, this will be where we put our things mainly as we enter and leave.  Since the mudroom is sunken, we had to do some work down in the man cave as well -- so framing started down there.  Here are a few pictures of how this all went down...

Mudroom cut-in, view from upper level - living room looking back.

 

Mudroom cut-in, view from lower level/man cave.

Sub-floor put into mudroom sunken floor.

Supports and sub-floor installed (from man cave).

Sub-floor installed, another view from top.

Mapping out where things will go with tape, haha!

That's it for now.. check back again soon!

More Demo Progress...

Things have been coming along with our first floor demo!  There's still lots of demo to do, but we're definitely making progress and keeping the ball rolling.

Recent projects include:

• Finished removing front hallway tile
• Removed hearth tile in the dining room
• Removed fabric and batting from walls in dining room
• Removed cabinets from the kitchen
• Removed floor tile in current kitchen pantry
• Removed door/wall trim in kitchen

Once we finished removing the kitchen cabinets, we were also able to sell them via Craigslist!  Frank and I were really happy to get those off our hands and making some extra money to put towards our renovations was a bonus as well!

Frank and I also started taping out where the new windows, doors, fixtures, etc. will be installed.  This really has helped us work through some questions we had on decisions to be made and also help us get a feel of how things will flow with the new layout.  We're both very excited to see things coming along, and cannot wait to see the finished product!!!

Here are a few recent pictures from our demo work...

Working on the hallway tile removal.

Tyson loves to watch and see what we're working on.

Removing the cabinets in the kitchen!

Fabric is down in the Dining Room!

No more padded walls!

The tile is gone in the current pantry!

Cabinets are gone, trim around doors is out.

Cabinets are out and we've started taping out the new layout...

 Overall, things are coming along but there's still quite a bit of demo to do.  I'll keep you posted!